Millers Point - Stalking Sydney Tower

Sydney Tower was open to the public in August 1981. It affords wonderful views of the city, and cameras are welcome, unlike the Bridge-Climb where cameras are banned but they will sell you photos! The hassle with Sydney Tower, is its omnipresence. Every time, I turn around, there it is. Many times I have to step across until I can manage to hide it behind something else.

However, this post is not about Sydney Tower, but about Millers Point, and its current predicament. Millers Point hugs the shoreline immediately to the west of the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is a very old quarter of Sydney, many of its houses dating from the turn of the century (ie, 1900), when a massive proportion of housing was bull-dozed on the pretension that they housed the plague. Or even THE PLAGUE! Now, some of the buildings in Millers point date from the first half of the nineteenth century, which for this country is very old, and historic, even. But many are simply old, ramshackle, and in want of attention, either from a tradesman, or from a bulldozer. The issue is, many of the structures are owned by the state government, as part of their social housing stock. They have tenants; some of whom have lived there for decades, in subsidised housing. Now, the government wants to liquidate its stock, and the tenants are up-in-arms. I can see both sides of this arguement, but being a pragmatist, sense what is going to eventuate. There is more to this story, so will chat it through for the next couple of posts. I am doing double-time child-care this week and last, so my time is limited, not to mention my energy of an evening.